


write my name again (it's always a devil's bargain/remix)

by Teaotter



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Lazarus Pit, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Secrets, The League of Assassins - Freeform, comic book death rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4255869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is one thing Nyssa wants more than life: Sara, alive, breathing, <em>laughing</em> somewhere in the world.</p><p>Whatever the cost, she'll pay it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	write my name again (it's always a devil's bargain/remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [this act of translation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2516846) by [crookedspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon). 



**Awaken.**

Nyssa wakes, hounded from her dreams by a voice too powerful to resist. The scent of damp earth overwhelms her for a moment, chill and dark as the caves under Nanda Parbat.

Nyssa doesn’t move until she has oriented herself in the world. This is the apartment that Sara kept in Starling City, far from the shadows of Nanda Parbat. It is hardly more than a room, sparsely furnished with a bed and little else, the floor bare and dusty. Sara spent little time here, and it shows. 

There is no movement in the room, no sound of an intruder’s breath or footstep. It is as safe as it ever was, and Nyssa allows herself to shift slowly and open her eyes.

Nyssa has been staying in this apartment since learning of Sara’s death. She does this both for simple convenience, and in the hope that Sara’s killer might be persuaded to pursue a new target.

She has had no luck in provoking an attack, but she has awakened more than once with the sense that Sara lay beside her in the bed. Today, there is that body-sense, but she knows the person sleeping bonelessly beneath the blanket is not Sara. The smooth skin pressed to Nyssa’s side is warm but scarless, the woman’s back turned not in deliberate trust but in mere oblivious faith.

The air in the apartment is cool as Nyssa slips from beneath the covers. Felicity does not stir, and Nyssa holds back the impulse to smooth her bright hair across the pillow. She doesn’t know if the touch would be welcome, here in the pre-dawn darkness. There had been tears on Felicity’s cheek when they began; they came together in grief, not tenderness.

And yet it is tenderness that Nyssa feels now. Tenderness, and hope.

Nyssa checks her phone; there is a text message. It is coded, but simple enough to read: _call in_.

She dresses in fresh clothes, settles her knives, and slips out onto the fire escape. She double-checks the alley automatically; there is no one close enough to hear her speak into the phone. She chooses to use Arabic in precaution; the languages in this neighborhood are more likely to be Ukrainian or Serbian, if not English.

She doesn’t wait for a voice at the other end. “Father.”

“Daughter.” His voice is cool, but she knows him well enough: he is glad to hear from her. “Why is it that you have not yet returned to my side?”

Nyssa does not let herself relax. He could order her home, but so far, he has not. That could change. “Because I have not yet found the man who killed Ta-er al-Safar.”

“It is not proper that you abandon your duties to chase a ghost,” he chides her, and she cannot help but remember that he had never given Sara the respect that her Beloved deserved.

“It is my duty to seek revenge for one of our own,” she responds, more heatedly than she intends.

“The League will take its revenge,” he says, his voice dropping into the clipped tones he uses when he wishes her to remember that he is Ra’s, as well as her father. “But I am concerned that your judgment is clouded with grief.”

Nyssa will not bend, unless he orders her. “Your will, Father.” The words are dutiful, but the tone... She cannot make it obedient.

Her father -- and it is her father, not the Demon’s Head -- sighs heavily. “You have forty-eight hours.”

“Thank you, Father.” That, at least, comes out in tones more grateful than desperate.

But he hears the passion underneath, even if he does not know the source. “I understand your rage, daughter. But I cannot allow weakness in one so close to the Demon's Head.”

“I will not be weak,” she vows, but he has already ended the call.

Nyssa allows herself no change in posture, but she sags internally. She is weak; with worry, with hope that she dare not share.

On the other side of the window glass, Felicity is still asleep. She is tangled in the sheets the other way, as if looking for Nyssa's warmth in the empty bed. Her clothes are strewn across the floor, and the sight of them makes Nyssa smile. There is a passion under the veneer of civilization the other woman wears like a coat. Nyssa had known it was there; none of Sara's friends were more than nominally tamed by the softness of their society. But it is still lovely to see proof of it.

Nyssa makes a second call, not in response to any text, but to the voice that chased her from sleep.

“Tell me,” she demands as soon as the call connects.

There is still a pause on the other end, and Nyssa bites her tongue to keep from breaking it.

“She is awake.”

Nyssa’s breath catches in a sob; she has to move the phone away from her mouth, to keep the sound from carrying. The words are a shock. Nyssa had been preparing herself for the worst: that Sara's body had been too long dead; that the Priestess had not been able to perform the rituals in secret; that the waters had simply failed --

“But she remembers nothing.” The Priestess says these words as evenly as the first; to her, this is merely information.

Nyssa doesn’t want to accept it. She argues: “Memories are often clouded.”

“This is more,” the other woman responds, still emotionless. “She does not remember your name, Nyssa al-Ghul. She does not remember her own.”

“They may return to her.” This, Nyssa knows, is almost a plea.

“They may.” From the tone of the Priestess’s voice, Nyssa knows her plea is unlikely to be answered. “It matters not. Ta-er al-Safar is dead.”

“But Sara is alive.” Nyssa clings to the words. “You must hide her from my father. You must--”

“Must I?” The other woman’s voice lashes cold, even through the telephone.

“He will kill her, and me, for disobedience.” _Disobedience_. It is the worst crime in the League, and Nyssa is shamed that she has fallen to it, shamed to speak the word--

“Should I kill you for disobedience?” As Priestess of the Demon, it is her right. It might be her duty.

The thought sends a shiver down Nyssa’s spine. She has no doubt that the Priestess could strike her dead despite the ocean between them. But she did not bend to her father; she will not bend now. “I accept your judgment.”

The Priestess laughs. It is as wild and full of death as the edge of Ra’s al-Ghul’s blade. “You have so much faith in the righteousness of your path?”

“I have faith that I have done only what I could not fail to do.” The words are only the truth: she could no more have left Sara’s body to rot in that grave than she could have flown to the moon. “If that earns me death, so be it.”

Nyssa’s heart pounds in the silence.

Eventually, the Priestess sighs. “It may still, but not at my will.”

Nyssa shudders again. She can feel the brush of a chill hand stroking her cheek. She refuses to flinch away.

If she cannot command... for this, she can beg. “Please help her, as much as you may.”

“I will send her away from here,” the Priestess agrees, “with those I can trust. The world may repair what the waters cannot.”

Her last words are as much of a gift as can be granted, double-edged as Nyssa finds the hope to be. “I am most humbly grateful.”

“You know my price.”

 _Vengeance_. “It is the League's price, though my father is loathe to pursue it.”

“You will bring me the one who killed Ta-er al-Safar.” The Priestess’s voice is as hard as stone. “Then our bargain will be complete.”

“I will not fail.” This vow, at least, Nyssa will keep, or die trying. Deep in her bones, she knows that some evil will come of this bargain, and if she had any care for Malcolm Merlyn, she might try to warn him. But his life will buy Sara's, and Sara's life is all that Nyssa wants in the world.

Let evil come.

As she slips her phone away, she can see movement inside the apartment. Felicity has awakened; she picks up her clothes with uncertainty, shame in every line of her body. 

Nyssa wants to erase those emotions from the curved landscape of Felicity's shoulders. She wants to say that Sara is alive, and free of the League forever. She and Felicity could rejoice together, as they had shared their grief.

Nyssa will never say those things. If Sara's memories never return -- if the Sara they knew is gone forever -- there is no reason to raise false hopes. To her friends, Sara may as well be dead. Sara would wish to protect them from the evil that follows a bargain with the Demon, if she could. Nyssa can do no less. 

But she can, at least, take Felicity’s shame and give her a purpose. Together, they will find the man who murdered their golden bird, who stole Sara from them both. They will find Malcolm Merlyn, Al Sa-Her, and they will kill him.

Then Nyssa will drag his soulless carcass back with her to the shadows under Nanda Parbat.


End file.
